Explanation: Imagine traveling to a star about 100 times as massive as our Sun, a million times more luminous, and with 30 times the surface temperature. Such stars exist, and some are known as Wolf Rayet (WR) stars, named after French astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet. The central star in this image is WR 40 which is located toward the constellation of Carina. Stars like WR 40 live fast and die young in comparison with the Sun. They quickly exhaust their core hydrogen supply, move on to fusing heavier core elements, and expand while ejecting their outer layers via high stellar winds. In this case, the central star WR 40 ejects the atmosphere at a speed of nearly 100 kilometers per second, and these outer layers have become the expanding oval-shaped nebula RCW 58.

Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami: Wolf-Rayet star - zvezdy Vol'fa-Raie - zvezdnyi veter Publikacii so slovami: Wolf-Rayet star - zvezdy Vol'fa-Raie - zvezdnyi veter
Sm. takzhe: LDN 1471: polost', vydutaya zvezdnym vetrom Sharpless 308: tumannost' Golova Del'fina Kol'cevaya tumannost' vokrug WR 134 Shlem Tora Kol'cevaya tumannost' WR 134 Sharpless 2-308: tumannost' Del'fin Zvezda Vol'fa-Raie WR 124 Vse publikacii na tu zhe temu >>